Zoo Games

Have the children bring in one of their favorite stuffed bears. make a chart discussing the differences. or you can rank them according to size, weight, softness, cutest, fluffiness, height.

Have penguin races by placing a ball between the children’s legs while they run.

Make an elephant by painting and decorating a large box. cut out a large hole for the mouth throw peanuts into the mouth. can also be used as a shark with bean bags (add big teeth).

When I was doing a unit on zoo animals, I bought zoo scrap booking stickers. The stickers had the animals of different color ex. purple, blue and gray for elephants other animals were there too. I stuck them onto index cards and had the children match the animals. Some by color and some by just the animal. Some of the animals also faced different ways so they also match by the way they were facing. The children love playing games and a few started a game like the one called “Memory”. They just had a blast!

Five Monkeys in a Tree

Read book. As a math activity choose 5 children to be the monkeys. Ask the children to jump like they were on the bed – sing the rhyme that’s in the book – choose a child to fall down – everyone counts how many “monkeys” are left.

I’m Too Big

Need: book “I’m Too Big” (don’t remember name of author)

The book is about an elephant and a giraffe who don’t like their features – would rather have the feature of the other (Giraffe would like a long nose instead of a short one) Great illustrations! After reading the book – make a graph of the tallest children to the shortest children in the class (or group). You can also take in a bathroom scale and measure children from the heaviest to the lightest. My class loved this activity!

Using a tri-fold project board 1/2 size, create three sections, farm animals, zoo animals and pets. Labeling at the top of each section. Using clip art copy, and color a number of animals associated with the groups, laminate for lasting ability. Use Velcro dots, allow children to place animals in the appropriate areas. Remember that some animals can go any place which opens up discussion with the children. No wrong answers. I have also place a picture of a farm, zoo, and house in the separate sections along with the words. Children play with this center for long periods.

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